Alright.  Hey, everybody.  Welcome to Valley Creek.  Come on, wherever you are today, Denton, Flower Mound, Gainesville, Lewisville, The Venue, Online, let’s just welcome each other together. 

Come on.  I’m so glad that you’re here.  Hope is here, everyone is welcome, Jesus changes everything.  And what a great Easter celebration we had.  Now, if you are here or you are online, I think it was the best Easter experience we have ever had.  It might have been one of our best weekend experiences we have ever had.  And so I just want to start by saying thank you.  Thank you to every person that helped us tell the story.  Thank you to every person that invited somebody, to everyone that served, everyone who gives, everyone who creates culture, everyone who prayed and lean in or used their gifts and their talents to make it happen.  See, we were able to tell the greatest story ever in one of the most creative, unique ways that we have ever done and God was moving. 

There was so much emotion and we’re hearing story after story of people being touched and set free and healed and delivered and saved in Jesus’ name, all by just telling a story.  And so let me encourage you, if you missed this or even if you are here or participated, you need to make sure you can tell the story yourself.  This is one of the easiest and simplest ways to just tell somebody about the gospel, that in the beginning God made everything and it was good.  But we rebelled against Him and yet in God’s goodness He made a promise that one day a savior, a messiah would come.  And so Jesus, the Son of God became the Son of Man, came to live the life that we couldn’t, then he died in our place, was buried in a grave, three days later rose again from that grave, released the Spirit, birthed the church, and one day Jesus is going to come back again and make all things new. 

It’s the story.  And so you need to be able to tell this story and I want to encourage and actually challenge every person that’s a part of Valley Creek, who is one person that you can send this experience to?  Who’s one person in your life that you could just send them the link and just be like, hey, this really encouraged me, check this out.  I mean, come on, we send each gifts, we send each other funny videos, sports clips, news articles, why would you not just send someone the story and say that this just encouraged my heart in the season.  And some of you are thinking, well, that would be kind of weird to send someone the Easter service two weeks after Easter.  Guess what, we never used the word Easter one time. 

Now that I think about it, you’re right.  Yeah.  There was a lot of intentionality that went into that because last week wasn’t Easter, it was the story.  And we left the story with this really simple question, what does this mean to you and what are you going to do about it?  You see, if this is true, then that means that Jesus is Lord, not just Lord of eternity one day, but Lord of my life today.  And if this is true, then the greatest thing I can do to respond to it is to become a disciple of Jesus.  And so in response to the story, we’re going to start a new series today called Becoming Life as a Disciple.  Life in response to the story and who Jesus is and what he has done.  And over the next few weeks, we’re going to ask ourselves this really simple question, who am I becoming? 

Now, I’ve been thinking about that question a lot lately because you see, this week I turned 40.  It feels weird to even say it to be honest with you, but this week I turned 40, which means I have been a part of this family on mission for 15 years.  And I’ve been asking myself this question for the last few weeks, who am I becoming?  Which is an interesting question to ask because when you hit those big milestones in life, that’s not the question the world teaches you to ask.  The question the world teaches you to ask is what have I accomplished?  What have I acquired?  What have I accrued?  Where have I been?  What have I done?  What kind of significance do I have?  What kind of influence do I have?  It’s all about what we have done.  But that’s the wrong question.  Because identity is far superior to behavior. 

And so I’ve been asking myself this question, who am I becoming?  And what you might not know about me is that I am highly visionary, it’s just part of my role here at the church.  I’m a visionary.  I want to see what can be in the midst of what is.  I always want us to go to new places, to take new ground, to discover new things with God, so I’m highly visionary.  But I’m also highly reflective, which means a lot of time I stop and look back on where we’ve been and what we’ve done to try to understand what we have learned or what we have discovered because I want to take those learnings and apply them to our future so we can keep taking new ground.  In fact, unapplied learnings is intentional foolishness in life.  You can grab that.  Unapplied learnings is intentional foolishness.  So I like to look back to reflect.  And so I’ve been reflecting, who am I becoming?  And I’ve just been asking myself this question like, am I growing?  Am I maturing? 

Am I becoming healthier and freer?  Am I growing in righteousness, peace and joy?  Am I growing in faith, hope and love?  Am I becoming quicker to repent, quicker to apologize, quicker to forgive?  Am I getting healthier in my relationships?  Am I becoming more humble?  Am I becoming more kind?  And I just keep asking myself this question, like who am I really becoming?  And I’ve been using Jesus as the model to look at because Jesus is the standard and the source.  He’s the prototype and the power.  He’s the mold and the momentum to actually becoming.  And if Jesus is the way, the truth and the life, then the more I become like Jesus, the more life I’m actually experiencing.  And the less I’m like Jesus, the less life I’m actually experiencing. 

And so I’ve been asking myself this question, am I growing in the character and in the power of Jesus?  Am I growing in the character?  Like the fruits of the Spirit, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness and self-control.  Like in turning 40, are those things growing in my life?  And then I’ve been asking myself this question, am I growing in the power of Jesus?  Like he says, we will do the things he was doing and we’ll do even greater things than these.  Okay, I’ve left the greater things than these off, and just been asking myself the question, okay, am I just like doing the things that Jesus did?  Like serving people, and giving to the poor, and loving enemies, and making disciples and being intentional and in tune with the Father.  Like who am I becoming? 

And I’ve had these little things scratched in my journal for a long time and it was just this sense of like, this is who I want to be at 80 years old.  And I just wrote this thing down a while back, and I just said, I want to be a man of wisdom who thinks like the kingdom, who loves like the Father, who lives free like the Son and walks in the power of the Holy Spirit.  That’s who I want to become.  And so I realized, you might not have had a milestone birthday this week.  But I want to ask you the same question, who are you becoming?  And when was the last time you actually asked yourself that question?  You see, what’s interesting, if you look back on this last season, we’ve all done a lot of reflection.  You look at the whole world, everybody has been in this reflective mode.  And here’s the things we’ve been asking ourselves, like do I want to keep doing this job?  Do I want to still live in the house that I’m living in?  Do I want to start those activities back up again when the cycle starts back? 

Do I want to do this?  Do I want to go here?  Do I want to sell?  Do I want to buy?  Do I want to move?  We want to do all these – we’ve been reflecting on all those things.  And they’re all great and they’re fine, but the real question we have to reflect on is who are you becoming?  Like are you growing?  Are you maturing?  Are you getting healthy and free?  Is faith, hope and love showing up in your life?  Are you becoming quicker to repent and apologize and forgive?  Are the fruits of the Spirit, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness and self-control showing up in your life?  Are you starting to do the things that Jesus did, like be a servant and live on mission and make disciples and give to the poor?  Like who are you becoming?  And the reason this question matters so much is because of Jesus is life itself, then the more I become like Jesus the more life I experience.  The less like Jesus I am, the less of life I experience. 

And I’ve been trying to tell you all year, I believe that this the most important year in your spiritual journey because the decisions you make this year will set the trajectory for the next 5, 10, 15, 20 years of your life.  You see, the moment we put our faith in Jesus, what he invites us to do is to become a disciple.  So let’s talk about this for a little bit because I hope that we can understand this more by the end of this series.  A disciple, it literally means a learner, a follower, one who becomes like the one that they’re following, a student, an emulator.  You’re in this process of becoming like the one that you look up to.  In fact, Jesus tells us, “A student is not above his teacher, but everyone who is fully trained will be like his teacher.”  Jesus tells us that if we’re his disciple, he’s the teacher, we’re the student, and he is in the process of fully training us. 

When was the last time you thought about Jesus as a teacher and you as a student with the understanding that he’s training you?  And what I think is so cool about the concept of disciple or discipleship is you get to pick who you want to be disciple by.  No one ever forces you to be their student.  No one ever forces you to have to be trained by them.  You get to pick who you’re inspired by and aspire to be like and then you get to decide to sit at their feet and say, I want to be like you.  I want to follow you and know you, and live the life that you’ve got because you inspire me.  So mold me, shape me, train me, help me become like you.  You don’t have to do it, you get to do it.  And so the concept of discipleship or being a disciple, it’s the process of learning to live free as a beloved son or daughter. 

It’s the process of learning to live the superior kingdom realities in the midst of the inferior brokenness of the world that we’re in.  Discipleship is not about sin management, behavior modification, eating from the tree of knowledge in good and evil, right, wrong, should, shouldn’t, getting religious.  No, it’s the process of becoming who you already are in Jesus.  Now, see if you can catch this with me.  The moment that you put your faith in Jesus, you become a new creation.  He changes your identity radically.  And from that point on, that’s who you are now forever and always.  Check some of these verses.  “Therefore, if anyone” – that would include you – “is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old is gone, the new has come.”  The moment we put our faith in Jesus, we become a new creation, a metamorphosis if you will.  It’s like a caterpillar becoming a butterfly, the old is gone, the new has come and he’s completely restored our identity. 

We now are no longer sinners, we are beloved sons and daughters.  We’re not sinners, we’re the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus because of what Jesus has done, not because of what we have done, but because of what he has done we become a new creation.  Now, we need to learn to live a new lifestyle.  Of how about this next verse.  This says, “For God’s will, God’s desire, His heart was for us to be made holy by the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all time.”  So God’s heart was to send Jesus to die for us so that we would be made holy, set apart, righteous, loved, free, once for all time.  Does that mean that you it now?  Yes.  Does that mean you are it when you have your worst day?  Yes. 

That’s all it is.  Being a disciple is the delta or the difference between who you now are in Jesus and how you actually think, believe, act, talk, move and it’s bringing those things into alignment.  It’s not changing your behavior so you can become holy, it’s I already am holy, now I want to learn to live in alignment with who God says I already am in Jesus.  Come on, like you know this is true.  Like think of the different things.  Like in Jesus, you’ve been set free.  Yes?  Yes?  It doesn’t mean you always live free, though, doesn’t it?  In Jesus, you’re loved.  Yes?  It doesn’t mean you always live like you’re loved, though, doesn’t it?  In Jesus, you’ve been empowered.  Yes?  It doesn’t mean you always live like you’re empowered, doesn’t it?  So discipleship is about bringing my beliefs, thoughts, behaviors into alignment with what God has said is already true. 

That’s all discipleship is.  Sometimes we get so lost thinking discipleship is all these things we have to do for God and become this thing and change this and all this.  No, no, no, it’s I’m already this in Jesus, now I want to learn to think like Jesus, and believe like Jesus, and act like Jesus, and walk like Jesus, and move like Jesus.  Why?  Because he is life itself, and so the more I align and submit and surrender to that, the more life and freedom I actually experience.  Are you with me on that?  In fact, check out this next verse.  I like this.  This is Paul talking to the Galatians.  He says, “My dear children, for who I am again in the pains of childbirth until Christ is formed in you.”  I like this verse.  He basically says that discipleship is an uncomfortable as childbirth. 

He says ,let’s just be real clear about this.  It’s a little awkward.  It’s a little uncomfortable, it’s a little weighty.  There’s going to be some pain involved and all the mother said? 

Yeah.  There’s going to be some laboring here until what?  Until Christ is formed in you.  Not until you’re included in Christ, because that’s already happened.  Until Christ’s thinking, believing, living is formed in you.  And that word formed is not an external conformation, it’s an internal conforming.  It’s a transformation from the inside out that changes the thinking and the beliefs of who we are.  And eventually that will change how we act and how we behave.  In fact, I remember being in high school, and I always remember there was always these kids that would buy these old really junkie cars.  And the car itself was terrible.  And they only had a little bit of money and they’d spend all the money on getting a sweet paintjob. 

Do you remember this?  Have you ever experienced this?  Maybe this is you.  If so, that’s okay, we still love you.  And I remember they have this sweet paint job.  And on the outside, it would look so good, but the engine was junk, and the frame was bent, and the transmission was like missing gears, the interior was destroyed, smelled like cats had lived in it.  I mean the car was nasty, but on the outside, whoo.  Sometimes they’d even put racing stripes down and you’re like, man, we’re going all out here.  Okay.  Can I tell you that’s how I think a lot of us do our journey with Jesus?  We’re only really interested in the external veneer.  We want to show at the church or be around some people and we want them to think like, oh yeah, like we’ve got it all together?  And God’s not really all that interested in what the outside looks like, he cares a whole lot about what’s going on inside. 

He doesn’t care about the paint job, He wants to give you a new frame, and a new motor, and a new transmission, and a new interior and eventually the paint job will come.  The problem is, is we want to throw some racing stripes down our life by putting a Bible verse or a cross on our social handle kind of thing, but in here, in here is really where God is inviting us to be formed into Jesus.  In fact, God gives us this incredible analogy of what this becoming journey, this life as a disciple looks like.  And it’s in the Old Testament in the Book of Jeremiah.  And He tells Jeremiah, the prophet, He says, hey Jeremiah, go down to the potters house because I want to show you something.  And so Jeremiah goes into this potter’s house and he sees this potter working on some clay, working his wheel.  And look what God says to him, He says, “Watch this potter.  In the same way that this potter works his clay, I work on you.” 

Watch this potter.  Think about a potter working hard.  He’s pumping his foot moving that wheel.  He’s got a lump of clay.  And he knows exactly what he wants to create.  And he’s intense, he’s focused, and he’s gentle and he’s kind, and he’s patient.  And he has a mold of exactly, or a model of exactly what he’s trying to create.  And he’s moving it and he’s shaping it, and he can get rid of any deformity and any defect through the process of time and pressure.  That’s what is saying He does with us.  That’s He’s a potter and we’re the clay.  And that He’s working on us with kindness and gentleness and patience.  And He can get rid of any deformity or defect. 

Our job as the clay is to just simply allow the potter to do what He wants to do.  He’s looking at Jesus as the prototype and He is shaping you into that image and that likeness.  And there are really four ways I think that God primarily shapes us, the clay, as Him as the potter and us as the clay in our life.  Four really simple things that He uses, word of God, Spirit of God, people of God, circumstances of life.  If you want to become who God has created you to be, this is the process.  Are you still with me on this?  See, we liked being clay on the potter’s wheel until we realize this is what the pressure feels like.  And all of a sudden, some of you, those labor pains just kicked in.  That’s funny.  Okay, look at this.  Word of God, first one is this.  All scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. 

There it is, God’s word is designed to teach us, rebuke us, correct us and train us, to shape us, mold us, form us into the image and likeness of God in righteousness.  Remember, in Jesus, you have already been made righteous.  You’ve been made right with God by Jesus once and for all, you’ve been made holy once for all time, we’ve already looked at it.  Now, we are learning how to live a righteous life.  We’re learning how to live a holy life.  We’re learning how to think like Jesus, and believe like Jesus, and act like Jesus, so He uses His word to teach, rebuke, correct and train.  See, God’s word is living and active.  And we don’t work on it, it works on us.  And when we put it inside of us, it begins to shape us and mold us and transform us, correct us, rebuke us.  And one of the things that we have to understand is that God uses His word to heal us or to wound us so He can heal us. 

He uses His word to expose us so He can cover us.  He has to bring things to the surface and challenge, and shape, and mold, and God is totally okay if you’re offended by His word.  We got to get to this place that like, God is not worried about your interpretation of His all eternal word.  He’s okay if you’re offended by it, He’s okay if you leave with more questions than you had coming to it.  He’s okay leaving you in the mystery of it.  Why?  Because He knows it will cause you to seek Him and to lean in.  Our job is to just let the potter do what the potter does.  This is why Jesus prays at the end of his life, “Father, sanctify them by your word.  Your word is true.”  He says, Father, shape, mold them by your word because your word is truth and your truth will set them free. 

And if Jesus is the word of God, then the more I allow the word of God to shape and mold my life, the more I’m actually becoming like Jesus.  Are you with me on that?  The word is not meant to bend to our life, the word is meant to bend us into the life of Jesus.  So the word of God.  And then there’s the Spirit of God.  Go to the next one.  “And I will put my spirit in you –“ No, John, the next one.  See how many verses are in here?  You never know what’s coming, neither do I.  Jesus talking here, he says, when he, the counselor – so the Holy Spirit is a counselor – he gives us wisdom in a world full of foolishness.  He is a guide, he leads us in the midst of darkness.  He’s a comforter, he gives us comfort in the midst of the chaos and the brokenness of this world.  He’s always pointing us to Jesus and He is always reminding us of everything that Jesus has said. 

So when he, the counselor comes, he will convict the world of guilt in regard to sin and righteousness and judgment.  The Holy Spirit has come to convict us, shame, mold, pressure, form us into the image and likeness of Jesus.  And He has come to convict the world of sin.  This is why people who don’t believe in God, want nothing to do with God, still have a sense of guilt and shame in their life.  If I don’t believe in God and I want nothing to do with Him and I don’t think he exists, then why would I ever had guilt or shame.  But the reason the world does is because the Holy Spirit is outside moving around them, pushing, trying to lead them in that direction to say, there’s a better way.  You need a savior and one is coming.  His name is Jesus.  So he’s always trying to bring people to the end of themselves so they’ll look to God.  But as us as followers of Jesus, he’s convicting us of righteousness. 

He’s convicting us.  The Holy Spirit, when you mess, doesn’t show us in your life to say, you’re a sinner.  Why?  Because that would be a lie.  And he’s the Spirit of Truth, so he can only speak truth.  When we mess up, he shows up in our life.  He’s already in our life, he’s moving from the inside out and just saying, hey, you’re living so far below who you are in Jesus.  Come on, you don’t need to miss the mark here.  You don’t want to do that.  That’s death, that’s darkness, that’s brokenness, that’s bondage.  And Jesus has set you free.  Remember, in him, you’ve been made right.  So you don’t even have to be afraid of the Father right now, even though you’ve messed up.  Let’s go right to the Father because of what Jesus has done.  Now, we’re going to be encouraged and comforted and we can live in freedom.  So He’s shaping and molding.  Our job is to just let Him do what He does.  And what you have to start understanding is that the spirit within you longs to obey God more than your flesh longs to disobey God. 

This is really important if you can catch this.  In Jesus, you are now hardwired to obey God.  When you’re a sinner, you’re hardwired to sin.  But if identity determines your behavior, then when I’m a new creation in Christ, I’m hardwired to live righteously.  I’m now a butterfly.  Butterflies don’t crawl around in the dark.  Come on, we’ve got to believe that the Holy Spirit has more power in us than the sin that’s working against us.  We’ve got to have more belief in the victory of Jesus than the failure of add on.  We’ve got to give more -- have more faith in the power of the Spirit that’s working for us than the flesh that’s working against us.  If you can repent and catch the spirit within you actually longs to obey more than your flesh longs to disobey, all of a sudden you start moving in the right direction. 

Because you actually have to make a conscious effort to go in the wrong direction now.  Why?  Because the Holy Spirit is always leading you in the right direction.  In fact, that’s why that next verse says, “And I will put my spirit in you so that you will follow my decrees and be careful to obey my regulations.”  Who is it that obeys?  The spirit working in you helps you follow and obey.  Makes sense?  So we’ve got the word of God, we’ve got the Spirit of God, then we’ve got the people of God.  Next verse, “Instead, speaking the truth in love we will in all things grow up into him.”  If we want to grow up into Him, become everything that God has created us to be, the fullness of maturity in Jesus, we need people to speak the truth in love in our lives.  And the labor pains just kicked in twice as much because we want nothing to do with this.  We want people to speak the truth in love.  We just want people to tell us that what we’re doing is awesome.  We just want people to tell us we’re amazing. 

And that our dysfunctional choices are so good and we should double down and do them even more.  That’s really what we want if we’re honest.  And then the labor pains kick in because someone comes along and speaks the truth in love.  And now the question is how are we going to respond to that?  See, if you don’t need the people of God in your love, do you understand that’s literally like one of the most arrogant statements you could ever make?  Because you’re literally saying, I’ve got it all figured out.  You’re literally saying, I don’t have any blind spots in my life.  You’re literally saying, you have grown up into the fullness of Jesus.  I have not.  So if you have, please come speak some truth and with love into my life because I’m in the process of becoming and I need people, and so do you.  And so we’re in a shift and an arrow right in the world where a lot of people especially in the church right now, followers of Jesus are all making this declaration, I can just follow Jesus by myself. 

If you start with the word of God as your source of truth, you will discover that that’s actually a like.  So by the time you get to this one, you realize it’s actually not true.  I can’t do that because I need people to speak the truth in my life so I can grow up into him.  Are you with me on that?  And then the last thing is circumstances of life.  “Consider it pure joy my brothers whenever you face trials of many kinds because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance.  Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.”  When was the last time you had joy about your trials?  We hate our trials.  We want our trials to get over as fast as we can.  So all we do is really like ask God to finish them, to get us out of them, to move on from them.  But here’s the deal, if we want to become mature and complete, we actually need them. 

We need the pressure forming us.  Why?  Because it’s in that pressure we actually call to God.  And we start saying things like, God, what are you trying to teach me?  What are you trying to show me?  What are you trying to shape in me?  Listen to me, vision gives pain a purpose.  If you don’t have a vision for who you’re becoming, your pain is purposeless.  But when you have a vision to become who you already are in Jesus, then all of a sudden storms have significance because I know they’re shaping and molding me into the image and likeness of God.  Does that make sense?  So these are the four things, the word of God, the Spirit of God, the people of God and the circumstances of life.  And here’s the problem for a lot of us, is when we don’t allow the word, the Spirit or the people to shape us, circumstances crush us.  There’s an order here.  If I never let the word, the Spirit or the people shape me into the image and likeness of God, the potter and the clay, then when circumstances in life show up, they literally crush me. 

And this is why so many of us can’t make it through the trials and the storms and the tribulations of our life because we’ve not been shaped enough by the word, the Spirit and people.  In fact, look at this verse.  This is Jeremiah and the potter and the clay.  “But the jar he was making did not turn out as he had hoped, so he crushed it into a lump of clay again and started over.”  Can I tell you, I think last year for many followers of Jesus, that identify with Jesus but maybe weren’t following Jesus, there was a crushing.  And it is in the potter’s goodness and grace and patience to press it down, to start over again, shaping it into the potential and the purpose for which it was created. 

See, I think we’re in the season where God is inviting us back to discipleship, to being a disciple, a learner, a follower, a becomer, one who longs to be like the one that they’re following.  And I think God is inviting us as a church to move into this new dimension of creating a discipleship culture, a discipleship culture that values the word of God, that honors the Spirit of God, that is devoted to the people of God, and that leans into the circumstances of life.  Not casual Christianity, not consumerism, not religion, not church, not cheap grace, not a bubble verse racing stripe on your social media, but an actual internal transformation in your heart, bringing you into aligning with who God says you already are in Him. 

You see, you are being discipled.  The question is whom are you being discipled by?  Make no mistake about this right now.  You are learning, following, becoming like someone or something.  Is it the right thing?  Are you being discipled by the word of the world, spirit of darkness, the people of this world, and the brokenness of circumstances and becoming bitter?  Or are you being discipled by the word of God, the Spirit of God and the people of God and allowing the circumstances of life to make it better?  And there’s no in between.  You’re moving in one of two directions.  Who are you being discipled by?  And is that who you want to become? 

Don’t have more of a vision in your life to do something than you do for who you’re actually becoming.  Listen, for my birthday, my kids wrote me a bunch of different things, words of how they see me and who I am.  And it just reminded me that at the end of our lives, no one really cares how much money you have, how may trophies you have, how many social media followers you have, what you’ve accrued, what you’ve accomplished, what you want, where you’ve been.  They care who you are.  And Jesus cares who you are, so he laid down his life, released his spirit, gave us grace and said, now, this is who you are.  Now, let’s go on a journey of becoming who you already are in me.  That’s discipleship.  Here me, discipleship is not try harder, behave better, do more, get religious, get your act together. 

Discipleship is let’s become who you already are in Jesus through the word, the Spirit, the people and the circumstances.  And as the clay who choose to just trust the potter and say, make me into the prototype, the Son of God who became the Son of Man to show me what being alive, what being human, what life is all about.  Come on, if I trust God to create me and save, why would I not trust Him to disciple me?  Lean in to the potter’s hands and you’ll be amazed at who you become. 

So close your eyes with me.  Maybe let me just ask you this one, what do you feel like God is saying to you right now?  In this moment, in this space, what’s the Spirit of the living God saying to you?  See, I think God is stirring some things up in our church.  Stirring up some new faith, some new hope, some new sense of catching the gravity of who we are and what Jesus has done. 

I think He’s stirring up some new invitations, some new hunger, a sense of value for His word, honor for His Spirit, and devotion to His people, and a sense of purpose to the pain that we may be feeling.  I just see a picture even right now of some of us even just stopping and looking to the potter and saying, I’m sorry I keep trying to bend in the direction that I want to go.  Would you mold and shape me in the direction that you want me to go?  In fact, what if even right now in your own way, you just gave Jesus permission, what if you just said, God, I’m your clay and you’re my potter. 

Make me into a masterpiece.  Come on, that’s a prayer I can’t pray for you.  Only you can pray that for yourself.  God, I’m your clay, you’re my potter.  Make me into a masterpiece.  I don’t want to be on the will of this world, I don’t want to be molded and shaped by the potter of this world.  I want to be molded and shaped by the good Father who sent his son, who released His Spirit to transform me from the inside out.  So Jesus, thank you that we start where you finished.  We now are beloved sons and daughters in whom you are well pleased by our faith in you.  We’ve become righteous and may we learn to walk that journey out and become who we already are in You. 

May we be disciples in Jesus’ name, we pray.  Amen.